Okay. So day 1 & 2 in Bangkok: Thailand are over and already it has been a pretty hectic experience. From being attacked by vicious wild animals to enjoying extremely cheap food at a delicious vegan restaurant; my experience, like Bankok itself, has been crazy.

Day 1 (well 2 days really however I am counting it as 1 due to it being my blog meaning I can do as I please, sorry for the tangent) consisted of the actual journey to Bangkok itself, and I have come to the realisation that I’m not a fan of long haul flights. Granted the service provided by Air India (not sponsored) was really good, it’s just, and anyone who knows me can vouch for this, I’m incredibly figety and can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes. That combined with the fact that I fiddle (sounds dodgy but I couldn’t think of another word) with everything in sight made for an unpleasant experience both for me, and the people around me. Although I did knock back a few whiskeys which helped a substantial amount, I must admit.
So after 15 hours flying and a 3 hour stop over in New Delhi, I landed in Bangkok, eager as ever to get to my apartment so I could sleep off the impending jet lag that would come to make me it’s bitch for the next 24 hours. But it wasn’t that simple. Suvarnabhumi Airport is rather huge and to get to the exit you have to trek, what feels like, 10km of escalators and hallways and negotaite your way past numerous security guards, checks and finally, immigration. After all that’s over you are finally free, free to roam Bangkok and it’s not so welcoming 30 degrees of pure humidity. Yayyy…
From there I went and got a taxi, they actually had an extremely efficient method for booking a taxi so that didnt take long, thank god. 25 minutes later, and only £2 poorer, I reached my accommodation, gratefully put on the life saving air conditioning, cooked some noodles I had purchased from 7-Eleven, before going to bed and taking a much needed sleep.
Day 2 (1.5) was basically me just trying to recover from fatigue and severe jet lag. My apartment was way out the way from anything anyway so I didn’t mind using this day to just recover.
Day 3 (2) is when the adventure really began. Me being me I forgot checkout was at 11 so the girl who owns the apartment walked in on me… In minimal clothing, but she was super nice so it was okay, despite the awkwardness. I then got a taxi to my new apartment, but due to language barriers I had to walk 40 minutes to find the B&B as apparently I didn’t explain it quite clearly enough. Bearing in mind Bangkok is hot, like really hot, and busy, like super busy, so this was not a fun experience By the end of it I could wring my shirt out it was that sweaty. However I finally found my apartment, and what a surprise it was. Located in a shop which sells mirrors, oddly enough, and decorated from top to bottom with quite beautiful stained glass windows and ceilings, it was a lovely apartment and somewhere I was very grateful to be spending my next 3 nights. Not to mention the fact my host was an absolute star, answering all of my many questions, some of which quite stupid; for example, asking for the wifi password 4 times because I had forgot it by the time I walked up the stairs, and providing me with a very good vegan breakfast. I cant thank her enough.
Now it was time, time to start the Bangkok adventure, which meant crossing busy roads. If you’ve ever been to Bangkok you will know that crossing roads is an art form, an art form that you kind of have to master in a very short period of time, and I’d like to say I have done just that. There are literally thousands of cars and even more motorbikes at all times as well as minimal crossing assistance and traffic lights. What I have learnt is that you basically just have to go for it. Walk out into the road with your arm adjacent to your body and palm facing towards the car/s, they will always stop. Thankfully the drivers are very polite with pedestrians in the fact they just accept this, and do actually stop with no fuss or bother, but obviously as a first time tourist to Bangkok, the roads were somewhat daunting to begin with. Of inside just walk right behind a local, that’s what I did to begin with.

I didn’t really have much time left now, all of this had took me to about 3pm but thankfully where I was staying was very close (just 2 minutes on the MRT) to Lumpini Park, which is kind of like Central Park in New York only in Bangkok, and not New York. Everything I have read/watched regarding Bangkok recommended a visit to Lumpini Park, and it didn’t dissapoint. Packed full of people doing exercise, lush grass and flowerbeds and glistening lakes and streams, it was quite wonderful. It took me around 1 hour and a half to walk around the whole park, although I obviously did stop to take many pictures, watch local Thai’s dance and practise Tai Chu as well as interact with wild animals. Speaking of wild animals, there was an evil turtle which was not only extremely ugly, but massively aggressive. I only wanted a nice close up picture of his devil like face and he went straight for my throat, snapping his jaw like a madman. I took that as a warning to stay away and quickly retreated, he seemed to mean business. Maybe he just didn’t like the name Iggy. But yeah the park was amazing, very chilled and exactly what I needed after that long night and stressful start to the day.
That traumatic experience with devil turtle left me hungry so I hopped on the MRT again to a nearby Vegan restaurant I had been eager to try since my arrival, ‘May’s Veggie Kitchen’. Upon my entrance I was greeted with lovely smiling waiters/waitresses and a menu packed full of a variety of vegan options. From any kind of fake meat to traditional Thai meals, there was something for everyone. I ordered the Thai Green Curry and a water and about 20 minutes later (the perfect waiting time imo) my huge portion of steamy green curry and rice entered my vicinity and I couldn’t have been happier, it was truly delicious. Only cost me around 200 baht, which is little over £4 and in my opinion an absolute bargain. Although one tip, in Asia, spicy means spicy, so be wary when ordering ‘spicy’ food. I made that mistake in India.

So that was the end of my first proper day in Thailand, and what a day it was. Bangkok is such a worlwind of a city. You can hate it one minute and love it the next, but it is definitely somewhere you should try and visit if you want to experience somewhere completely unique and bursting with culture.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and stay tuned for the next post. Keep smiling, Harrison 🙂

Okay this post will be a short one, but just wanted to share this with you guys.

The other week I decided to put a very speculative accumulator bet on. For those of you unfamiliar with betting, an accumulator is a bet placed on a series of races, or in this case matches as I bet on football. I bet on the result of 14 matches and for my bet to win each and every one of my predictions would have had to come in, so that’s 14 match results picked correctly, which is obviously extremely unlikely. So there I am, checking my results halfway through and realising that 8 out of the 14 had already came in and 5 more were in play and about to come in. I went through a number of emotions at this point realising I could actually win just short of £8000 (oh yeah I forgot to mention, I put £10 on and the return was £7800) and then began to get extremely nervous. One by one the results came in, however, to my despair, one game was played later than all of the others. At this point 13 out of the 14 had come through and I was shaking like a leaf. The final match was Real Madrid vs Villareal, me of course picking Real Madrid as they are the obvious favorites. Believe me when I say this was the slowest 90 minutes of my life. Waiting for that result to come in was torture. They did indeed dominate the game and win 3-0, but I must have rang both of my parents 4 times each so they could calm me down as I paced back and fourth in my, very dirty, uni room.

So yeah long story short I won just short of £8000, crazy I know. And the best part about it was that it was a free bet I got for signing up, it’s safe to say Betfair were not very happy and were extremely reluctant to give me the money. But that’s gambling for ya.

I know it’s a cliche, but time does really fly. It feels like yesterday that I was nervous about transitioning into uni life, but here I am now, with a year under my belt and loving every minute of it.

I genuinely can’t believe that I have finished a year at uni, like how did that happen? (okay I still have one exam left, but still!) And not only that, but I’m actually doing quite well, despite my attendance may suggest. I mean, I haven’t failed anything yet, emphasis on the yet as I just submitted my poetry assignment, and this first year I’m on for at least a 2:1, which is bloody good and far better than I expected. Granted I’m not the perfect uni student, I have been roped into doing a few things I probably shouldn’t have and left whole assignments till the last day etc etc, but in my opinion that’s what uni is about, having fun, you just happen to get a degree out of it at the end. That outlook is more than likely an awful one, however; I just think Uni is far more about growing as a person than getting a qualification, but maybe that’s just my laid back attitude coming into play again.

Anyways, I’m rambling, as usual. If anyone reading this is on the fence about university, I say go for it, you won’t regret it. People look at it like it’s just the degree, but it’s so much more than that. You make friends and have experiences that will stay for life, you discover new passions, finally live independently and most importantly, grow exponentially as a person whilst still holding onto that childish, teenager side who goes clubbing the day before 9am lectures. Obviously it’s not for everyone, but uni, like life, is what you make of it, and in my opinion everyone can make uni the time of their lives if they want to.

But back to the title of this post. One of my favourite quotes is this “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” I like to try and live my life by that. Making the most of every opportunity, being the best possible person I can be and having a load of fun along the way. We’re all on this rollercoaster that is life together, so let’s make the most of it hey. And…

Believe it or not this is actually an argument us vegans hear, quite regularly as well unfortunately. And it is a quite simple one to refute, simply by saying no; Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian, not even close. Hitler was advised by his doctors to follow a vegetarian diet from ‘time to time’, emphasises on the time to time part of the sentence, due to the fact he suffered from severe flatulence, however; he was never an actual vegetarian. Just by looking at the facts we can decipher this. Biographers who wrote about Hitler (and who knew him quite well on a personal basis) openly describe his love for Bavarian sausages and game pie (“game” meaning wild meat from birds and other creatures) and Hitler’s own personal chef described his favourite meal as stuffed pigeon, not very vegetarian huh. Thanks to ‘naturalnews.com’ for the info. But let’s play it your way, let’s pretend Hitler was a vegetarian. The problem with that is the argument is a logical fallacy, aka an argument with extremely poor reasoning. To put it simply, one does not impact the other. You can be evil and you can be vegan, the two are by no means mutually inclusive. If you want to play that card then allow me to play mine. Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot… the list goes on, were all meat eaters, so surely that means meat eaters are also evil serial killers, right? No. Of course not, so can we agree to put this argument to bed now, as it really is a stupid one and just makes the arguer look like an idiot. Granted it is usually played at the end of debates when said party realises they have lost, but go out with dignity for goodness sakes. So, to clear up, no Hitler was not a vegetarian, but who cares if he was?

The answer really is that simple, I can’t believe this is an actual argument I’ve heard, but ‘No’ makes for a boring blog post, so here goes.

Firstly ask yourself this question; would you like to be killed ‘humanely’? The average slaughter time for a cow is 18 months, pigs even less and chickens just mere weeks. So if someone offered you lots of money, a nice house, anything you wanted really but the catch is you will be slaughtered for food after 18 months, would you take it? Of course not. And the fact is 99% of animals killed for food are not treated ‘humanely’ at all. Yes some might get to be ‘free range’ before their impending death, or yes they might be knocked out before they are killed, but the fact is it will never be humane to kill an animal for food, especially in this day and age. The demand for meat is so high it is impossible to have completely grass fed animals, there has to be some form of slaughter house, animals have to be pumped full of steroids and live their lives in cramped spaces, just to keep up with the demand for meat and dairy. So if you say to yourself that it’s okay because the animal was killed humanely (how the f*** can you kill something humanely?) then you really are scraping at the bottom of the barrel for excuses.

Cognitive dissonance. That pretty much summarises the whole human race at this point. The definition of this term is the following: “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change”. Mainstream beliefs are constantly contradicting themselves in this day and age, and the most recent example of this is the controversial death of the rare La Plata Dolphin which tragically died after being passed around for a selfie on a beach in Argentina. Now I love animals, as you can tell by my passion for being Vegan so this upset me more than most, however; I love all animals and believe they all have the right to live just like you and I, and, despite the fact this particular dolphin is a very rare species, the death of this dolphin upsets me just as much as the death of a cow for your burger, or the death of a male chick for simply not being born a woman. All animals have the desire to live and, in my opinion, are equally deserving of that right. Death is death, and I am fully aware that dying for a selfie is ridiculous, but dying for food after spending an entire life enslaved and being pumped full of steroids and antibiotics is equally ridiculous, particularly in 2016 when humans have no need to eat meat, in fact the general consensus of science is that a vegan diet is actually optimum for human health, despite what mainstream media propaganda/coverups will have you believe, such as that recent video from WatchMojo. Just look at people like Dr. Kim A Williams, who happens to be the president of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Michael Greger who uploads daily content on his site (click here), Dr. T Colin Campbell, who published the biggest study on nutrition of all time in the China Study. There are tons of mechanistic data and studies showing that Vegan diets actually can reverse disease and, considering that 14 out of the 15 biggest killers in the UK/US are diet related, this is revolutionary. There is not one nutrient that benefits the human body which cannot be obtained from a vegan diet, humans simply choose to eat meat, it’s traditional, they have you believe it’s ‘natural’, it tastes good and by consuming meat/dairy you are actively supporting the rape, exploitation, enslavement and slaughter of innocent, sentient beings that are motivated by the same emotions to live as we are, and if that upsets or offends you, maybe it’s time to wake up from this fantasy land the media portrays where chickens and cows run around happy and accept the reality of your decisions to consume animal products.

To summarise; it’s obvious that humans love animals, you can tell that from how upset everyone is about this dolphin, not to mention the fact many of us have pets which we love. Humans have no carnivorous instincts, as I said in my last post (here), and more and more people are realising this, making the connection, and going vegan. I understand we don’t see a dolphin as food in this country, but other cultures eat dolphin, we are just desensitised to other animals dying and being labelled as bacon or sausage, it’s wrong and will change, sooner or later.

And this is not the truth because I’m Vegan, I’m Vegan because it’s the truth. Keep smiling, Harrison.

This, believe it or not, is another anti-vegan argument that people love to use. Something has to die in order for us to survive so why can’t we just eat whatever we want. That’s the argument and I’m surprised people actually think this is a good reason to contribute to the needless death and suffering of animals, but apparently it is, hence this post.

Now this probably won’t be a long post because of how stupid this argument is but here goes.

The quote I have seen articles refuting veganism use is this:

“If we truly believe that no living thing should have to die for our dinner, we shouldn’t eat at all. If we truly believe that all life deserves equal respect, why not equalize ourselves by embracing the elegant fact that we are all, as Nelson writes, “driven by the same hungers that motivate any other creature— the squirrel in the forest, the vole in the meadow, the bear on the mountainside, the deer in the valley”?

This quote can be made irrelevant purely by the definition of veganism. Vegans believe that, as far as possible and practical, we should abstain from all forms of cruelty and suffering of sentient beings for food, clothing or any other purpose. Emphasis on the ‘as far as possible and practical’ bit. Humans have to eat something, that much is obvious, so vegans just choose the lifestyle that provides animals, and the environment, with the least amount of suffering as possible, it’s quite simple.

Now for the part of the quote which states humans are ‘driven by the same hungers that motivate any other creature’, that is quite simply ridiculous. Obviously we experience hunger like any other animal and therefore go and seek food to satisfy this hunger; however, humans certainly have no instincts to kill and eat meat. Animals with these instincts, for example a lion or bear, see an animal and immediately think food, they even salivate at the sight of these animals. Humans have zero carnivorous instincts and have to cook our meat before it is even safe for us to eat, and even then we struggle with digestion. As activist Gary Yourofsky says: If you put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit, tell me the time where the baby plays with the apple and eats the rabbit, it will never happen. Humans go to a supermarket and buy meat with names such as bacon, sausage or steak, nothing about that is natural or shows carnivorous instincts and definitely doesn’t resemble the behaviour of other animals who do actually need meat in their diet to survive, unlike humans.

People also like to say the classic line of ‘but lions kill other animals for food, it’s the circle of life’. The circle of life definitely doesn’t involve breeding animals purely for the purpose of being food/used for dairy, pumping them full of steroids and antibiotics, using them for their bodies and then finally killing them for food, that doesn’t sound like nature at work at all to me. Also, isn’t it unfair to replicate one trait of a lion and ignore all of the other things they do? Like you don’t see many humans licking their own anuses, killing their infants, or urinating in bushes to mark their territory.

Pardon my ridiculous reasoning in that last paragraph but I feel it is okay and relevant when such a ludicrous statement like this is used to try and dispute veganism. So yeah, hope you enjoyed. Keep smiling, Harrison.